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By Peter Fenn
The Bush camp is behaving as though the election is eight weeks away, not eight months. It has unleashed millions of dollars in negative ads that are harsh and strong, and the president has left the Rose Garden and come out swinging at Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Its theory: Kerry’s “blackboard,” as seen by the American voter, is barely written on, and the Bush team wants to fill it with negative information before Kerry has a chance to tell his positive story. As a political strategy, that could make sense.
Clinton did it in 1996 to a certain degree against Bob Dole, and many of us have used the tactic in races for other offices over the past 20 twenty years. But one caution: It is early, and the “fact-checkers,” the press, and the pundits are paying attention. And one other very big problem: As the first salvo, the Bush campaign and the president himself have deliberately made false and misleading claims against Kerry.
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The president’s speech was followed by an attack ad claiming Kerry would increase taxes by $900 billion. His rollback of the Bush tax cut for those making over $200,000 a year would actually bring in $250 billion, much needed money, Kerry says, to provide for education and healthcare, create jobs and reduce the deficit. The Bush ad cites a “Kerry ‘plan’ that does not exist,” according to The Washington Post’s “Ad Watch” (March 14). As for the claim in the same ad that Kerry “wanted to delay defending America until the United Nations approved,” the Post corrected the Bush ad, noting that Kerry “never demanded U.N. ‘approval.’”
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By leading with attacks that are false, this far out from Election Day, Bush is going down a very dangerous road. My guess is that the Kerry campaign won’t hesitate to call him on it every chance it gets.
http://www.thehill.com/op_ed/032504.aspx |
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